December 12, 1872. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



465 



I at once dug into its midst, and found it to contain masses of 

 spawn very muck resembling, both in appearance and smell, 

 the spawn of the common Mushroom ; it was accordingly con- 

 demned. I was afterwards shown a Vine-border made from 

 the same heap about six months previously, and a houseful 

 of Vines planted in it ; but with all the coaxing imaginable 

 they could only be induced to make canes the strongest as 

 large as a goosequill, and at the time of my visit (end of Sep- 

 tember) the Vines were badly ripened and leafless, with dark 

 fungoid spots at intervals all over the bark. 



This is one of the reasons why I wish to direct the attention 

 of young cultivators to the subject — namely, to stack soils of 

 all descriptions in narrow ridges, and particularly at this lime 

 of the year, when frost may be expected to exercise a very bene- 

 ficial influence. It has been my practice for some years to 

 stack all sucTr soils, when they can be had, in the form of turf 

 pits, building the walls from 12 to 16 inches thick, front walls 

 1J foot, back walls 2J feet high, in parallel lines about 6 or 

 7 feet apart. These pits are half filled in spring with fer- 

 menting materials, and thousands of bedding plants are kept 

 there until the final planting-out, when it is found the turf 

 has been " cooked to a turn " for almost all kinds of potting 

 purposes. This mode of preparing soil or sod may commend 

 itself to many, from the fact of its having done duty during 

 the process of preparation. — W. Muir.. 



SCARLET-FLESHED MELON EMPRESS 

 EUGENIE. 



In " Jottings of this Year's Gardening " Mr. Abbey wishes 

 some of your correspondents to name a good scarlet-fleshed 

 Melon that will not crack in a dung frame. I recommend 

 Empress Eugenie. This year I thought I should like to have 

 some large Melons, and I had two plants in a two-light frame, 

 and allowed one plant to ripen one fruit, and the other two 

 fruit. The single Melon weighed 9 lbs., and the two on the 

 other plant were respectively lbs. and 7 lbs., and there was 

 no sign of cracking in either, yet I think the past year has 

 been a very good test, so far as wet has been concerned, to try 

 their cracking propensities. Malvern Kail is also a first-class 

 early variety of the Melon, but does not attain the size of the 

 above. These two varieties are free setters, and have good 

 constitutions — recommendations which the scarlet-fleshed 

 Melons do not always possess. 



I am sorry I cannot recommend a better late Strawberry 

 than that mentioned ; but as Mr. Abbey is to discard Black 

 Prince, I think he would find a superior substitute in Dr. 

 Roden's Early Prolific, which is a first-class early Strawberry. 

 — J. Andeeson, The Gardens, Hill Grove, Kidderminster. 



GLAZED GARDEN STRUCTURES. 



" The future of English gardening will be more and more 

 under glass." This has been my idea ever since the duty on 

 glass was repealed. I have just erected a glass shed in imi- 

 tation of Mr. Foster's described last year. Mine is GO feet 

 by 12 feet, wired like a vinery, but for the growth of Apricots. 

 The continued success of Mr. Foster's shed is enough to induce 

 anyone to build such a structure. The failure of Apricots on 

 the open wall was last year almost universal. Mr. Gadd, of 

 the Wollaton Gardens, told me they had not three dozen 

 Apricots from all their extensive walls, whilst other gardeners 

 in this neighbourhood say they have not gathered a singie 

 fruit. From two small trees which have been loaded — I should 

 have said overloaded — for three years previously, Mr. Foster 

 gathered this year, twenty-five dozen fine fruit. With the ex- 

 ception of the first year, a very dry hot season, when each tree 

 received a bucketful of water once, these trees have never 

 once been either watered or syringed ; the foliage has always 

 been large, clear from red spider or other insects, and the 

 fruit clean and bright as Oranges. Can anyone doubt that the 

 proper mode of Apricot culture has been discovered ? 



Let us now turn to the Peach. What success has attended its 

 culture on open walls in the past season ? Can many persons 

 boast of large crops or good-flavoured fruit ? I have an 

 orchard house 90 feet by 30, more than half filled with young 

 trees for sale, and though much fruit was eaten by my family, 

 friends, and visitors, I sold 163 dozen of fine fruit out of it. 

 This fruit was sold wholesale at 6s. a-dozen, a pretty good 

 proof, taking into consideration the profits fruit-sellers require, 

 that it was of good quality. I know no work so disheartening 



as to train, nail, prune, syringe, shade, &c, Peach trees on the 

 open wall, though well aware all the time that there is no 

 chance of good fruit more than once in five years, which is 

 about the average in this neighbourhood. Surely a gardener's 

 time might be better employed, and the walls used to better 

 purpose. Are late Pears so little valued that a south or west 

 wall should be considered too good for them ? Is a Green 

 Gage, a Golden Drop, or Reine Claude de Bavay Plum, so poor 

 a fruit that any east aspect should be considered good enough 

 for it ? If people cannot afford a house for Peaches or a shed 

 for Apricots, it is no reason their best walls should be wasted 

 in their attempted culture. 



No doubt there are persons living in favourable situations, 

 blessed with a fine climate and good soil, who will take ex- 

 ception to my remarks. To such persons I do not refer, yet 

 think even in such cases they might more profitably employ 

 their Peach walls. It is not in man's power to command 

 success, but where a large outlay is yearly incurred, success 

 should be as nearly certain as possible, and this in the culture 

 of Peaches and Apricots can only be attained by the use of 

 glass. — J. R. Peaeson, Gldlwcll. 



GODWINIA GIGAS. 



There is now in flower at Mr. William Bull's, King's Road, 

 Chelsea, one of the vegetable wonders — the Godwinia gigas. 

 It is the first time it has bloomed in this country. The in- 

 dividual flower, or properly spathe, is nearly 2 feet long, by 

 1 J foot in circumference, and produced on a stem only 18 inches 

 high. 



This Aroid was thus described in our seventeenth volume, 

 page 396. " This extraordinary plant, which has proved to be 

 the sole representative of a new monotypic genus of plants, 

 has been figured in the ' Journal of Botany,' where a detailed 

 description may be found from the pen of its discoverer, Dr. 

 Berthold Seemann. It is allied to the genus Dracontium, but 

 differs from that genus in having twice as many stamens as 

 perigonal segments. It produces but a solitary leaf, this one 

 le.if with its petiole being some 14 feet in length. When the 

 leaf has quite died down the flower appears, after the manner of 

 the Colchicum of our meadows, but the flower of this giant 

 Aroid measures 2 feet in length, and 1 foot 8 inches in breadth. 

 The leaf of the plant figured attained a height of 7 feet in two 

 months, the leafstalk' acquiring a circumference of 9 inches. 

 The same plant ultimately nearly attained the dimensions of 

 the Nicaraguan plants. The leafstalk has a beautifully mottled 

 metallic surface, brimstone yellow in colour, barred and striped 

 with purple, looking, says Dr. Seemann, ' like a snake stand- 

 ing bolt upright at the command of some eastern charmer.' 

 It was discovered in January, 1S69, near the Javali Mine, 

 in the Chontales Mountains of Nicaragua, and is altogether 

 the largest Aroid of which we have any knowledge. Its 

 flowers emit the odour peculiar' to many Aroides. The base of 

 the spadix, preserved in spirits in Central America, is now 

 in the herbarium of the British Museum." 



WARNING IN HEATING. 



The following is a recent episode in my horticultural expe- 

 rience ; and if you think there is anyone so stupid as to need 

 the caution, you are at liberty to print it. 



Finding that through the fierceness of the draught the heat 

 was unmanageable in a new flue, the lower half of which was 

 formed of the usual square tiles and the upper or farthest 

 part of 9-inch drain-pipes, I enclosed some of the latter in a 

 sort of trough or bin, and filled-in with sawdust. This, I 

 imagined, would carry off from the house some of the extra 

 heat, and, serving as a reservoir of warmth, would give me a 

 permanent hotbed for raising plants from seeds and cuttings. 

 For a few days, while the sawdust continued damp, success 

 seemed complete ; but during one of the gusty nights we have 

 lately been favoured with, the material caught.fire throughout 

 the entire length. On examination, the layer next the stone- 

 ware pipes proved to have been converted into a sort of fine 

 charcoal, which, while only smouldering itself, was able to set 

 the rest in a blaze, which was soon communicated to the 

 wooden bin, and thence to the stand above and the shelves 

 within reach. The circumstance that much of the surrounding 

 work was of oak and elm unpainted, no doubt prevented the 

 destruction of the entire house and the adjoining ones. As it 

 is, the downy-leaved plants, as Primulas, Cinerarias, and Gera- 



